


my true name is a growl

by nymphae



Series: the hundred [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Clarke/Raven if you squint, F/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Teen Wolf AU, pottymouth best friends, some blood/gore, you know general stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 11:51:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3208163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nymphae/pseuds/nymphae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke gets bitten in the woods on a Saturday night under a full, heavy moon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my true name is a growl

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. I got carried away again. This was honestly only supposed to be like...5k words long. Oops. Anyway, I kind of just took everyone I love and shoved them into werewolf world. The translation from character to TW role is a little off and I took a whole lot of liberties with this, but whatever. I hope it's enjoyable!

Clarke gets bitten in the woods on a Saturday night under a full, heavy moon.

Raven’s hands press down on her side, _into_ her side, and fuck if that isn’t more terrifying than the _thing_ with crimson eyes and yellow teeth that materialized out of the darkness five minutes ago. Clarke had hardly seen it coming before it had ripped into her, tossed her aside like a rag doll, and then dissipated as though it was made of the thick blackness that wrapped around the trees and stubbornly resisted the light.

 _This is stupid,_ she’d said to Raven seconds before. _Ghosts aren’t real._

Clarke has been hurt before. She fractured her arm falling off the monkey bars when she was eight. She once sliced open her hand cutting tomatoes. She accidentally broke her littlest toe when she stubbed it on the coffee table that her mother keeps moving around the living room. But nothing has ever been as painful as _this,_ this rippling sharpness that immobilizes her, overcomes her.

“Oh, fuck,” Raven keeps saying. “Oh, holy _fuck_. Clarke, don’t you dare die—don’t you fucking _dare_ —”

Clarke is feeling a million things right now, primarily a buzzing in her brain and in her veins and in every nerve, but all of a sudden none of them are pain. “Where’s my inhaler?” she says.

Raven can’t even hear her over her stream of cursing. “I’m going to call an ambulance—I’ll drag you to the road. Mother of all fuck, I am so sorry—”

“Raven, _stop_.” She shoves Raven’s hands away with a surprising amount of strength, yanks up her shirt.

There is so much blood. But there is no wound.

They climb up and into Clarke’s window after a cold and silent walk, hands clasped like they used to do when they were little, before they were told they were too old to do that. Raven is shivering and shaking, her dead cell phone clamped in her free hand, but Clarke feels _alive_ , warmth coursing through her body, her heart pounding loud and strong inside her chest.

They don’t speak until they’re settled in Clarke’s bed, in Clarke’s old clothes, their hands scrubbed raw but somehow still rusty red.

“I don’t understand,” Raven whispers. She sounds frightened, which is unlike her. Clarke can see the tips of her long eyelashes in the dark and they’re fluttering. “You were dying. I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either,” Clarke whispers back. Under the vibrancy in her veins she is afraid too, a fluttering kind of afraid that makes her feel restless. She finds Raven’s hand and squeezes it. “Maybe this is all a bad dream.”

But it isn’t. They wake up late the next day, and the fear is still there.

 

Raven insists on inspecting Clarke like a lab specimen every four hours. Her mother walks in on her standing glumly in the center of the room in her underwear, Raven holding a magnifying glass to her flank.

“I don’t want to know,” she says, with that soft exasperation that is reserved solely for them.

“Good call,” Clarke tells her. A part of her wants to spill; her mother’s a doctor, after all. But how does she do it without sounding crazy? Without scaring her? She feels suddenly guilty.

“Nothing!” Raven huffs. She drops onto Clarke’s bed, tucks her legs beneath her. “Clarke, I swear there were like, enough teeth marks in you to take a mold and make dentures.”

“I know,” Clarke says glumly. “I was there.”

When she finishes pulling her sweatshirt over her head Raven has that Look on her face. Clarke knows this particular Look well; it always makes appearances just before Raven’s greatest triumphs (yes, including the Science Fair Debacle of 2009). It means, in a sentence, _I will figure this out if it kills me_.

True to the Look, Raven appears in the cafeteria on Monday laden with books, which she drops onto their table with a formidable thump. It seems a lot louder to Clarke than it does to everyone else—but that’s now true of everything. She can hear the conversation at the table next to theirs (Monty Green and Jasper Jordan are discussing the merits of Kanye’s last album) and the grumbling of the lunch lady’s stomach and even Raven’s heartbeat, which patters out a beat that is distinctly Raven. Smells are also amplified, which is worse. High school odors make Clarke want to carry around a Febreze canister at all times.

“What the hell,” Clarke says.

“I have absorbed,” says Raven, wide-eyed, “so much fucking information.”

By the time she has finished her lecture, Clarke is more terrified than before.

“I’m a _what?”_

“A werewolf,” Raven says cheerily, and it sounds like a disgusting word. Seeing Clarke’s face, she adds, “I mean, I have no way of being a hundred percent sure, but come on, Clarke. You got bitten on a full moon. You’ve got healing powers—”

“No, I don’t.”

In response Raven grabs her fork and not-so-subtly stabs it into the back of Clarke’s hand. Clarke stifles a shriek. “What the fuck!”

“Just watch.” She takes the fork back, and the two of them watch in fascination as the four puncture wounds close up. Raven smirks.

Clarke glares at her. “How did you know that would happen?”

“I didn’t,” comes the typical Raven answer.

“How is this even possible?” Clarke mutters to her mashed potatoes.

“I don’t know,” Raven shrugs. “But you’re like, superhuman. You heard Roma whispering from down the hall. You caught that thing Monty threw at you without even looking and you haven’t needed your inhaler for the past couple of days. Like, at all.”

Clarke knows this is true. She’s been getting stronger, faster, healthier. And more terrified.

“I guess that’ll be a good thing when you turn in three weeks,” Raven adds.

Clarke snaps back into the moment. “I’m going to turn in three weeks? _”_ she hisses.

Raven nods, her ponytail bobbing. “And every month after that like clockwork.”

“What if I—?” Clarke stops, looks around, and then leans in. “What if I, you know, _eat_ someone?”

“Holy shit, you totally could,” Raven says, with an inappropriate amount of amazement in her voice. When she sees the look on Clarke’s face, she melds into seriousness. “It’s going to be fine. I’ll tell my mom I’m sleeping at yours and you’ll tell your mom you’re sleeping at mine, and then we’ll go out into the woods and I’ll chain you to a tree and you can howl your wolfy ass off.”

“That sounds like the worst plan in the world,” Clarke tells her.

Raven quirks a dark eyebrow, and this is the other Look—the challenging one, the one that means Clarke is headed for dark waters and a fight. Predictably, she retorts, “You got a better idea?”

 

Clarke does not, in fact, have a better idea. The closer the date of the full moon comes, the more undone she becomes. She starts to avoid her mom, her friends, everyone who isn’t Raven, who tackles Clarke’s new problem with an enthusiasm that only she could muster.

Clarke keeps breaking things; she snaps off door handles, crumbles the corners of desks, crunches mugs in her fist in the morning. She and Raven constantly spend the night at each other’s houses, too afraid to sleep alone. Clarke is sure she’s losing her mind; a week before the full moon she gasps herself awake in the middle of the night, her nails—claws—ripping holes into her mattress. She can’t breathe; she is burning, boiling, _dying_.

She stumbles into the bathtub and sits in the cold spray of water trying to catch her breath, trying to escape the _thing_ just under the surface of her skin that wants to burst out of her. She curls in on herself, jamming her knees to her chest, not wanting to punch a hole through the bathtub or through Raven, who is sitting on the cold tile with large worried eyes underscored by circles as dark as her hair.

“I’m losing my mind, I’m losing my mind, I’m losing my mind,” Clarke chants around the suddenly long teeth in her mouth, stifles shrieks and sobs at the elongation of her fingers, the vibrating strength in her muscles.

Against all logic, all common sense, Raven grabs Clarke’s shoulder hard, refusing to let go or even flinch when Clarke turns her fanged, horrible face toward her. “You are going to be okay,” Raven says, enunciating each word. “I love you. You are going to be okay.”

Clarke stares at her, takes in her familiar scent and familiar heartbeat and familiar presence, and it all just…goes away. Raven climbs into the tub with her and they just sit there with their knees touching, hands clasped, until Clarke starts to believe her.

 

The day of the full moon, Clarke is seriously considering just ditching school and hiding in her room.

Everything is magnified today—more than usual. Every time Monty taps his pencil on his desk it resounds in Clarke’s head like a kick drum. Harper is gritting her teeth two desks up; to Clarke it’s a chainsaw kicking to life. When their teacher puts the chalk to the board Clarke has to clench her fists and steel herself for the absolute worst auditory pain she’s ever felt in her life.

It’s so bad that after school in the library (Raven has insisted on piling on as much research as possible before tonight) she has to blast the loudest music on her iPod to block everything else out.

_“Clarke.”_

Raven’s voice breaks through Clarke’s pounding music with a clarity that only hers has. Clarke blinks, pulls out an earbud, and frowns. “What?”

Raven’s eyes are glued to something over Clarke’s shoulder, her mouth slightly open. “I don’t want to freak you out,” she says calmly and lowly. “But Octavia Blake is staring at you.”

Completely freaked out, Clarke turns around. Two tables away sits the very figure, eyes boring into Clarke’s face. She doesn’t flinch when Clarke stares back, doesn’t look away.

They have never so much as spoken to Octavia Blake; like the rest of their school, they know her solely via the whispers and rumors that follow her like a bad odor. She had enrolled as a junior in the middle of first semester, slowly and silently joining the student body as though hoping no one would notice. But of course, no one could overlook the inherent sadness and mystery that plagued the name Blake—not after the Blake house burned down with ninety percent of the family inside of it these six years past. _Poor Octavia,_ people say. _Imagine coming home to find everyone dead._ _Imagine being all alone._

Clarke has never even been in the same room as Octavia before, technically speaking. She had always thought her sad—always alone, always silent unless directly spoken to, always a shadow flickering between lockers and hallways.

But as Clarke watches, Octavia gets up from her seat and starts walking over.

“What the fuck,” Raven mutters.

Octavia stops in front of their table, eyes still on Clarke. She is very pretty, with eyebrows made for being raised and dark eyes that are both deep and intimidating. Clarke can hear her heartbeat, steady and strong and normal. But her scent hits Clarke’s nose all wrong—it’s neither unpleasant nor pleasant, but it’s _different_. It makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

“Hey,” Raven says, breaking the silence.

Octavia doesn’t even look at Raven, instead glancing at the mess of books covering every inch of their table. “Lycanthropy?” she says to Clarke.

Clarke’s heartbeat speeds up. “It’s for a project,” she says lamely.

Octavia does not react except to hum. “You know,” she says, “if you’re really interested, my brother studies this kind of stuff. You can borrow some of his books.”

Clarke and Raven stare at her, both thinking the same thing (a series of question marks). If they don’t know Octavia, they certainly don’t know her older brother, who hasn’t been seen since the week of the fire. _He’s something of a recluse,_ Clarke’s mother had said once. The more popular theory is that Bellamy Blake didn’t actually survive that horrible night; that he’s nothing but a ghost wandering the town. Clarke doesn’t believe it.

“Thanks,” she says at last, frowning.

Octavia’s eyebrow does go up then, and Clarke was totally right about them. “Be careful tonight,” she tells them. And then she smiles, a flash of teeth so quick and so startling Clarke isn’t actually sure it happened. “It’s supposed to rain.”

“What the fuck was that?” Raven hisses once Octavia’s out of earshot.

Clarke is staring after the tiny girl, trying to pinpoint that scent. “She knows something,” she mutters.

But what, she has no idea.

 

Clarke is in the middle of telling Raven to go fuck herself when the shift starts.

She cuts off mid-sentence and doubles over as much as she can (she is hindered by about seven layers of thick metal chain), the air punching out of her lungs.

“Clarke?” Raven’s voice comes out shrill and frightened.

It’s happening again—that horrible stirring inside Clarke’s chest, the feeling of something waking up. It’s stronger now, and she can literally feel the pull of the moon, as though it’s got hooks in her heart, in the creature inside her. Despite herself she lurches against the chains, feels them give and groan. It’s coming too fast, just under her skin, restless and wild.

“Run,” she pants. There is a new, cold fear spreading through her, because Raven is standing five feet away and she is glass wrapped in tissue paper to Clarke’s new hands.

“No,” Raven says flatly. She has taken a firm stance, feet spread, fists clenched, jaw stiff, but Clarke can smell the fear on her.

Clarke’s speech is now clumsy around her fangs. Her thoughts are switching—protect Raven—kill Raven—and she is half-growling, half-crying. “Raven, go,” she pleads.

“I’m not leaving you,” Raven says.

Clarke loses it. The creature bursts from her skin, feral and _desperate._ Another minute of fierce thrashing and the chains snap. She lunges out into the cold air, jaws aching to clamp around something like the girl with the thrumming heartbeat in front of her.

Raven screams once, and then something is slamming into Clarke’s side, changing her trajectory, pinning her to the pungent earth.

Clarke fights back, snarling, biting. She gets a mouthful of flesh and blood and the thing above her snarls. It slams her harder into the ground and roars in her face, and that sound jars her to her bones.

Her head clears. She stops fighting, breathing hard, heart galloping, but the thing sitting on top of her does not loosen its grip. There’s that smell again, like the smell of Octavia’s skin but not quite. The creature inside her is resisting her, wants to fight and tear and rip, but for the first time she is able to squash it, at least give it pause.

“Good,” says the thing tiredly. With her new vision Clarke sees that his face is just as twisted as hers, his eyes just as luminous—a stinging blue instead of burning yellow. Another werewolf. His grip on her disappears, and she thinks she’ll have bruises.

“Bellamy,” chimes a second, more familiar voice.

Clarke turns her face to the earth and catches sight of another similar face, eyes burning gold, standing protectively in front of Raven, who looks stricken and wide-eyed. She gets it at last, wants to laugh despite the blood in her mouth.

That’s how she meets Bellamy Blake.

 

The second time Bellamy accidentally breaks Clarke’s arm she doesn’t launch herself at him like she might have two weeks ago. She just sits—right there on the floor of the decrepit Blake house, cradling her arm to her chest, nursing the bitter burning anger her wolf harbors toward him.

“Get up,” Bellamy says. He hasn’t even broken a sweat. Clarke feels like she’s just bathed in it.

“Give me a second,” she says irritably. Her arm has started to burn, which means it’s healing, but slower than it usually does. Probably because she hasn’t been home since yesterday and she’s tired as hell.

“Your opponent won’t give you a second,” her teacher states. His arms—long and strong—are crossed over his broad chest, and his mouth is a stern line. Clarke has yet to see him smile.

“ _What_ opponent?” Clarke demands. “You still haven’t told us what we’re training for. Or who our alpha is.”

Bellamy’s mouth tightens. _Alpha_ is a taboo word around both Blakes; it’s whispered if even said, never explained, never broached. At first it felt like saying _fuck_ in church. Raven and Clarke looked it up on their own, and neither Blake had liked that.

“You don’t need to know that,” he says coldly, haughtily.

“I do if you want me to be part of your pack,” Clarke snaps back, just as coldly.

A muscle jumps in his jaw. “You’re already part of my pack.”

“Then I definitely need to know.”

He glares at her. She refuses to be stared into submission; she narrows her eyes at him in challenge.

“Get up, princess,” is all he says.

Clarke really, really hates that nickname. She scowls at him, lifts herself up on her good arm. Instead of getting to her feet, she kicks out as hard as she can at Bellamy’s knee (it crunches satisfyingly), darts behind him, and throws her elbow into his kidney. When he whirls, jaws ready to snap down on her, she punches him hard enough to propel him towards the floor. He’s too nimble to fall, but he still has to catch himself with the palm of his hand.

“Kneel,” she spits.

At the other end of the room, Octavia bursts out laughing, her mouth full of popcorn. Raven pretends to wipe tears from her eyes. “That’s my fucking girl,” she crows.

Bellamy spits blood onto the ground with a grimace, but when he straightens up, there’s something softer in his steely eyes that catches Clarke off-guard.

“That’s our fucking girl,” he agrees.

 

When Clarke turns on the next full moon, it’s easier.

This time she is standing between Bellamy and Octavia at the edge of the woods, Raven safely and grudgingly at home, breathing in the night air and all its scents, succumbing not only to the pull of the moon but to the pull of pack. When she opens her eyes her vision is brighter. To her right Octavia bares her fangs in a grin, golden eyes burning. To her left Bellamy smirks, cobalt eyes like gems in his half-shadowed face.

“One mile radius,” he says.

Octavia bumps Clarke’s hip. “I’ll race you,” she says, and then she’s gone in a cloud of dirt and dust before Clarke can react. She looks wildly to Bellamy—she has never let go, never let the wolf take over.

He smiles with only half his mouth, as Blakes always seem to do. “Run wild, princess.”

And she launches herself after Octavia, pounding the packed earth, faster and faster until the woods are a blur of color and scent. It’s the most thrilling experience she’s ever had. The woods have never been so alive— _she’s_ never been so alive. She trips and falls, gets up and keeps going. She laughs—when is the last time she laughed? She singles out Octavia’s scent in the dark, weaving between trees and tiny animals in the darkness.

She catches up and jumps on Octavia’s back. They fall and tumble, Clarke over Octavia, Octavia over Clarke, down a leaf-spattered hill. They’re laughing when they finally stop, flounce on their backs and stare up at the foliage above them.

“Is it always like this?” Clarke asks breathlessly.

“Not always,” Octavia says, and there’s something in her voice that contradicts the sarcastic smirking girl Clarke’s gotten to know. “It was bad before, when it was just—” She stops.

“Just you two,” Clarke says.

“Yeah,” says Octavia. “But he’d been taking care of me long before that. And he’ll take care of you, too.” She pauses again. “Some parts will get easier. Sometimes you’ll wish you were human.”

“I wish I were human right now,” Clarke blurts.

“Well, you’re not,” Octavia replies. “But you have us. You’re pack. Family, get that?” She reaches over to pat Clarke’s arm. “We’re sisters now.”

Clarke grins at the thrum that passes between them.

 

She hears her mother climbing up the stairs long before she taps on the bedroom door—she also hears her hesitate, shuffle, and pace—but she still pretends to be absorbed in her homework until she speaks.

“Clarke?”

She looks up. Abby Griffin is outside of her usual uniform of dark blue scrubs and messy hair, instead dressed in jeans and a long-sleeve blouse that Clarke recognizes from a birthday years ago. Clarke’s father had bought it for her.

“Yeah?” It comes out sounding impatient, which isn’t what Clarke wants her mom to hear.

Abby seems to steel herself before entering the room. “Are you okay?” she asks. “I’ve barely seen you. You and Raven have been acting strange.” She pauses, then adds, “Stranger than usual.”

That makes Clarke snort. “I’m just stressed out,” she says. Even though she knows her mother won’t be able to hear her, she calls back Bellamy’s lessons on leveling her heartbeat during lies. “School’s been hectic.”

“Annette Jordan told me you’ve been hanging around Octavia Blake.”

Clarke frowns. It's not untrue; Octavia has been turning up at their lockers, at their lunch table, at their cars. Under all the brooding Blake-ness, she’s surprisingly amiable. “Um, yeah. She’s nice.” It’s far from the right word to describe her, but Clarke hopes her mom will buy it.

Her mother stares at her for a moment. “There’s nothing you want me to know?”

That catches Clarke off-guard, and anxious thoughts run through her head. Does she know? How could she? Should Clarke tell her? “No,” she finds herself saying.

Her mother’s gaze has always been unnerving, unusually perceptive, and Clarke hopes she’s not transparent. “Well,” she says finally. “Be free tomorrow.”

That’s when Clarke remembers what the date is.

 

(1:33 PM) Bellamy B: Be at the house at 4 no q asked

(1:34 PM) Clarke G: I can’t

(1:34 PM) Bellamy B: What

(1:35 PM) Bellamy B: What are you talking about

(1:40 PM) Bellamy B: Clarke

(1:42 PM) Clarke G: I can come by later

(1:43 PM) Bellamy B: No. 4.

(1:44 PM) Clarke G: 6

(1:44 PM) Bellamy B: This shit is important

(1:45 PM) Bellamy B: 4 fucking pm. Be there.

 

When she goes up the scorched porch steps of the Blake house at six, she can hear one heartbeat in the living room, and she already knows who it belongs to.

She turns the doorknob and pushes open the door. It doesn’t lock, and even if it did, nobody living in the house is afraid of anything deterred by locked doors. Inside it’s dark and damp, some parts rotting, others covered in plastic to hide the gleaming new bones that have begun to appear over the past few weeks. She can smell Raven in the house, scent fading. She hadn't even told Clarke she was here. When Clarke looks to her left, she finds Bellamy waiting for her, clearly pissed.

“You’re late, princess.”

Clarke clenches her teeth against the bitter anger that wells up. “Fuck you,” she snaps. “You’re not my alpha. I don’t come running every time you call.”

It’s meant to bite, but it only earns her about thirty long seconds of silence. His mouth twitches. That’s all. Why is it so easy for him to irritate her and so hard the other way around?

She sighs. “What’s so goddamn important?” she asks, crossing her arms.

“Pack relations.”

“Pack what?”

Bellamy rolls his eyes. “Relations,” he repeats. “Let me make it quick, since you’re so busy.” It’s Clarke’s turn to roll her eyes. “I heard word that a migrating pack’s passing through in a couple of months, so we need to be ready to make nice. We’re rebuilding this place, and you need to be here for it. Pack house gets stronger if everyone’s involved, so you can bring you chatty little human, too.” He raises an eyebrow. “Got it?”

Clarke wants to punch him. “You could’ve texted me all that.”

“Yeah, well, we were all supposed to retile the bathroom,” Bellamy says. “Which we did without you.”

Clarke huffs. “If that’s all,” she says coolly. “I’m going home.” Keys clenched in her fist, she turns on her heel to reach for the doorknob.

“Hey, princess,” comes his voice, softer than before. She pauses in the doorway. “What kept you?”

“It’s my dad’s birthday,” Clarke says. “I was visiting his grave.”

She shuts the door firmly behind her and leaves without looking back.

 

(8:23 PM) Octavia B: What did you do to B?

(8:24 PM) Clarke G: Nothing. He was being an ass

(8:27 PM) Octavia B: He forgets

(8:28 PM) Clarke G: Forgets not to be an ass?

(8:30 PM) Octavia B: That we’re not the only members of the dead dads club

 

When the first body turns up, it’s Wells Jaha who stumbles across it.

Clarke almost doesn’t answer when his name pops up across her phone’s screen. They were friends when they were younger, when the Jahas lived next door, before Elizabeth passed away. _Were_ is the word to focus on in that sentence. They mostly avoid each other now.

But she hears his voice—past the stuttering words and the tremors—and she knows this goes beyond whatever feud they’ve been having. She and Raven book it out of the house in silence, too afraid to voice the possibilities.

Her heart sinks when she recognizes the blonde hair fanning around the body in the pool, the bright red shoes that she’d admired once or twice.

“It’s Harper,” Raven says numbly. She sinks down at the water’s edge. “Fuck. Oh, _fuck_ —that’s Harper.”

Wells is crying, but Clarke thinks he must have already known.

When Bellamy shows up, Clarke is watching Raven help Wells throw up in the bushes. He only glances toward the pool once, clenches his fists. Clarke hears him breathe in, sees his eyes flicker blue for a fraction of a second.

“Are you okay?” he asks gruffly.

“I’m fine,” Clarke mutters. “I called you because…” She hesitates. “It doesn’t smell right.” She looks at him imploringly, hopes she’s not wrong.

Bellamy nods, mouth tight. “You did the right thing,” he says. He looks over at Wells, who has yet to even realize Bellamy’s presence. Raven is watching them with her dark doe eyes, looking queasy but strong. “Take the humans home.”

“No police?” she asks.

Bellamy shakes his head. “This isn’t something they can catch.” But he adds as an afterthought, “I’ll handle it.” Clarke doesn’t move, and in a surprising gesture Bellamy puts his hand on her shoulder. “Go home, Clarke.”

She and Raven herd Wells into the back of Clarke’s sedan. “I wasn’t even going to the pool,” he says miserably. “I was going home.” _She’d still be dead,_ Clarke thinks.

But Raven frowns. “Wait, what?” She gives Clarke a confused look, and Clarke returns it. Raven twists in her seat. “What do you mean, you weren’t even going there?”

Wells blinks at her. “I don’t know,” he says. “I mean, I just…ended up there. I had the most horrible feeling…” He shudders visibly. When he gets out of the car, silence takes over.

It’s cold in Raven’s bed, even under a pile of blankets. “Is this a bad dream?” Clarke whispers to the dark.

Raven’s answer makes it feel colder. “This is too fucked up for dreams.”

 

(10:12 AM) Bellamy B: Where are you

(10:13 AM) Clarke G: Calculus class. Why?

(10:22 AM) Bellamy B: Body #2 found on the preserve

(10:24 AM) Clarke G: Give me 20 mins

(10:25 AM) Bellamy B: Don’t

(10:25 AM) Clarke G: I’m coming out there

(10:26 AM) Bellamy B: No

(10:27 AM) Bellamy B: Stay at school

(10:28 AM) Clarke G: Fuck you

(10:29 AM) Bellamy B: Fine. Parking lot in 5. No humans

 

Bellamy’s car is a beat-up old truck that, despite being utterly unremarkable, stands out in the school parking lot. She’s seen it around the Blake house plenty of times, sitting alone and neglected in the back where no one can see it. Technically no one is supposed to be living in it until it’s built—Octavia’s mentioned that they had to get a “stable residence” in order to stay together—but they’re werewolves.

It smells like Bellamy, like trees and the odd cigarette, but also like Octavia and a little like sex. Clarke wonders absently who Bellamy is having sex with. He glowers at her as she climbs in. “You’re a pain in the ass.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me all week,” Clarke tells him, even though it technically isn’t true. “No Octavia?”

“She has English class,” Bellamy says curtly. Clarke raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t ask how he got her to stay put.

“Who is it?” she asks instead. “The victim.”

Bellamy pulls out of the parking lot at an alarming speed and doesn’t slow down, but Clarke doesn’t protest. “No one you know,” he says cryptically.

Clarke feels a flash of irritation. “How would you know who I know?” she demands.

He smiles suddenly, a smirk that fits his face surprisingly well. “He was a drunk, princess,” he amends. “He didn’t run in your crowd.”

Clarke chooses not to fight this particular battle. “I’m assuming he didn’t die of alcoholism,” she says.

“No,” says Bellamy, sounding amused. “His guts are all over the preserve.” When he catches Clarke staring at him he shrugs. “I’m just warning you,” he tells her. “The police are swarming, so you can’t get up close.”

“Who found the body?”

“Wells Jaha.”

Clarke starts. _Again?_ she wants to say. She feels a wave of sympathy for her childhood friend, makes a mental note to call him later and check that he’s okay. Nevertheless, she texts Raven to get a head start.

Staying out of sight means being a couple hundred yards away from the scene, but that’s not really a problem for Clarke’s brand new eyes. She can glimpse the empty body under a sheet, the browning fleshy bits scattered around the trees and black earth. She feels faintly sick, but she is all too aware of Bellamy’s presence beside her, of his eyes on her, and she refuses to show it.

She closes her eyes and breathes in the way he taught her, identifying the leaves and grass and decay. Under that, there is something sharp, almost painful to her nose. She looks at Bellamy.

“It’s the alpha,” she says accusingly. “Isn’t it?”

He is grim-faced now, lips pressed tightly together. Clarke doesn’t expect him to answer. But he says, “Yes.”

“You aren’t going to tell me anything, are you?”

“No.” He says it flatly, but he adds, “Not yet.”

It’s not enough. Clarke makes an irritated noise. “Why aren’t we doing anything to stop it?” she demands.

He looks at her hard. “ _We_ are,” he says, and his eyes flicker blue to show her he’s serious. She sets her jaw, but is the first one to look away.

“Bellamy,” she says when they’re back in the truck. He’s craning to back the car up, tendons in his neck straining, his jaw jutting.

“What?”

“Why are your eyes blue?”

The car jerks to a stop. He looks at her sharply, and because of the way he’s leaning, hand on the back of Clarke’s seat, his face is very close to hers. “Raven hasn’t dug up the answer to that?” he says after a moment.

 _Theories_ , Clarke thinks. _Legends_. But they’re living fairytales and it’s impossible to really know, so she just shakes her head.

Bellamy does that thing where he clenches his teeth for a second, so there’s a point in his jaw that pulses just once. He says, dully, wearily, “I have blue eyes because I’ve killed people.”

Clarke blinks. Bellamy puts the truck into drive and steps on the gas, his hand clenched on the wheel. Clarke doesn’t say anything, even when he adds the word _innocents_ in a quieter tone.

She reaches out and puts her hand over his gently, keeps it there even when he flinches in surprise.

 

When the familiar rattle of Raven’s car fades in on the street, it’s almost midnight and Clarke has a government test in the morning (which is part of the reason they’re not at each other’s houses right now). She doesn’t understand any of the chapter and she could probably benefit from another hour of studying. But she opens her window and waits until her best friend’s gleaming mass of hair appears.

“What’s wrong?” Clarke asks as Raven climbs into the room.

Raven looks flushed and unkempt in her pajama pants and a familiar old t-shirt (their wardrobes had become communal property to them sometime in middle school, so they’re not even sure whose clothes are whose anymore). “I think I know who the alpha is,” she says breathlessly.

Clarke stares at her. “What?”

Raven drops her backpack from her shoulder, and it hits the ground with a heavy thump; books, Clarke’s new ears tell her. Raven’s kneeling down to empty the contents of the pack—books on wolf packs, on animal anatomy, yearbooks, city records—and Clarke’s mouth is falling open. “Rae, how did you get all of this?”

Raven gives her another Look. “I’m resourceful as hell.” She flips open one of the books to a dog-eared page. “ _The power of the alpha passes in one way: blood. To obtain the status of the alpha werewolf, the reigning alpha must first die.”_

“Right,” Clarke says, nodding. “That we know.”

Raven continues a brand new line, _“If a natural death, power will be inherited by the next in line. If not, power will be usurped by the alpha’s better._ ”

Clarke frowns. “Better?” she echoes. “What does that mean?”

“Killer,” Raven replies. “If you’re not the child of the alpha or whatever, you’ve gotta kill it.” She’s already flipping through the next book, apparently oblivious to Clarke’s bewilderment. “Okay, so I’m pretty sure that the previous alpha was Bellamy and Octavia’s mom. See?” She shows Clarke what looks like a family tree, taps the name _Aurora Blake._ “That means Bellamy would’ve been next in line. When their mom died he would’ve become alpha and Octavia would’ve been his second.”

“But his mom did die,” Clarke says.

“Yeah,” says Raven impatiently. “But not _naturally_. That’s why Bellamy’s not alpha right now.”

Clarke stares at her, uncomprehending. “You’re saying—”

“Somebody set that fire on purpose.”

The girls stare at each other, hearts pounding out the same dawning beat in sync. Clarke feels sick. She was little when the Blake house burned down; she remembers nothing but town-wide silence, a memorial to which she had to wear an itchy black dress. No one had said the word _arson_. No one had said _murder._

Raven places a sheet of paper over the book. “Okay,” she says shakily. “Here’s the list of all the Blakes who died in the fire—”

“Raven,” Clarke interrupts, acid in her stomach. “Who is the alpha?”

Raven looks up at her then, a dent forming between her dark brows. “I think it’s their dad,” she says.

Clarke opens her mouth, but no sound comes out. It’s like her mind can’t compute what she just heard. Finally she says, “Their dad is dead, too. Octavia said so.”

Raven shakes her head. “I don’t think so. There isn’t a name on this list that isn’t an aunt, uncle, or cousin. Their dad isn’t on any records that I can access. But I’m guessing he was a werewolf too, and if he wanted power—”

“You think he’d murder a whole family?”

Raven looks pained. “Clarke, they won’t tell us anything about the alpha. Don’t you think this is a good enough reason?”

 

It’s Clarke’s third full moon.

Bellamy and Octavia refuse to let Clarke out into the woods for alpha-related reasons. That means the three of them—four, technically—lock themselves in the basement of the Blake house, to huddle down and wait. Bellamy grudgingly agrees to allow Raven in (with pestering from said human) on the grounds that she’s Clarke’s anchor.

They both blink at the word, look at each other in mild realization. _Anchor_ , Raven had recited weeks ago. _The werewolf’s natural connection to humanity._ Clarke thinks about all the times Raven was there, all the times she reminded Clarke that her heart is as human as it is wolf, and thinks it all makes sense. Raven seems to be thinking the same. They shrug and accept it.

Clarke doesn’t need chains anymore, but she still feels restless between the stone walls. Octavia explains the magic in them—dull now, but still present—that will keep her wolf at bay.

“This is where I turned the first time,” she says, with a note of fondness in her tone. “Bell, too.”

“We all turned here,” Bellamy says, and he doesn’t sound fond at all. He is the only one standing, arms crossed. He seems to like being in this room even less than Clarke does.

Raven starts laughing when their faces shift, when their nails lengthen and their eyes turn luminescent. “You look like you just walked off the set of _Buffy,_ ” she says, snorting, and Octavia laughs with her.

Octavia is showing her the tricks to half-shifting—one eye flickering, one fang sprouting, only the claw on their middle fingers lengthening—when Bellamy stiffens visibly, his heart rate speeding up.

“What is it?” Clarke asks. She’s distracted, so she can’t keep hold of the semi-shift.

Bellamy’s baring his teeth. “Raven,” he growls. “Open the door.” Raven blinks at him owlishly until he snaps around to snarl at her. _“Open the door!”_ She scrambles to the heavy door, swipes away the line of mountain ash at the threshold, and Bellamy’s gone.

“What’s happening?” Clarke demands, her heart galloping. She feels what he must be feeling—something horribly, horribly wrong, hears the sound of growling and tearing outside the house.

“Stay here,” Octavia says breathlessly. She heads to the door. “Complete the ash circle. Don’t open up until we come back.” She darts off, too.

Clarke lunges after her, whirling only when she hears Raven’s hiss behind her. “You heard what she said,” she calls, and then she chases Octavia into the dark.

A hair-raising howl has her skidding to a stop, almost smashing into Octavia. The sound rolls off the trees and through the valley, pierces through the walls and strikes Clarke’s ears at a painful pitch—more painful than anything she’s ever heard as a werewolf. It hits her whole body like a punch, makes her want to curl in and cower.

“Is that Bellamy?” Clarke breathes.

Octavia’s teeth are bared, her gold eyes wide. “No,” she says, and it’s the first time Clarke has ever heard her sound afraid. “No, that’s—”

Another howl chimes in, this time low and somehow familiar. _That’s Bellamy_. Clarke hears the warning in it, looks to Octavia.

 _“Run!”_ hisses the other girl. She shoves Clarke, and Clarke takes off as that horrible sound comes in again, pushing her faster, snapping on her heels. She has never felt this kind of fear—this feral, instinctual terror that pushes the human part to the back of her being. She runs until she can’t breathe, until she slams into something rock-hard.

She doesn’t have time to fall backwards; she is caught in a vice-like grip that she fights instinctually.

“Clarke! _Clarke!”_

It’s Bellamy. Human Bellamy, except for the brilliant blue of his eyes.

“What is that?” Clarke demands. “Bellamy, what’s happening? Where’s Octavia?”

“You need to run,” he tells her. His hands go from her shoulders to the sides of her face. “Go back to the house and get in the basement, okay?” He lets go and pushes her east.

She wants to, but there’s that _pull_ —something connecting her to him and to Octavia, wherever she is—and she can’t. “Bellamy,” she says. “Bellamy, is that the alpha?”

“I promise everything’s going to be okay,” he says. He shifts, and then he’s disappearing.

Half of Clarke wants to go after him, after Octavia. But she hears that howl again, spearing her to the ground, and she can’t help it. She runs, huddles with Raven in the corner.

Octavia arrives at the basement first, her hair a nest of twigs and leaves, her eyebrows pushed together. “We’re so fucking screwed,” is all Clarke can get her to say.

When Bellamy follows a half hour later, he’s bleeding and cursing. He sinks to the ground, into Octavia’s lap, skin and t-shirt shredded and crimson raw.

Clarke crawls over to push her fingers against the inside of his arm, to make sure. He grips her hand before she can pull it away. “Why aren’t you healing?” she asks breathlessly. “Why—?”

Octavia cuts her off. “Alpha-inflicted wounds take longer.” She is still shifted and very pale, one hand in Bellamy’s hair and another on his cheek protectively. Black lines twine up her skin like vines, like flowing ink.

“I’ll kill her,” Bellamy keeps saying. “I’ll kill her if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Shut up,” Octavia says.

“Her?” Raven repeats. Tears are tracking down her face, but she doesn’t seem to realize it.

Octavia is clenching her jaw so hard Clarke thinks she might break her own teeth. “Diana Sydney,” she spits. She curls her claws into the shoulder of Bellamy’s t-shirt, eyes burning in her pale face. “And _we_ will kill her if it’s the last thing we do.”

 

The third body is sitting on the Blake doorstep when the sun comes up.

“We need to get out of here,” Octavia says. She won’t let Clarke or Raven near it, which is fine by Clarke since it reeks of the alpha—of Diana Sydney. She doesn’t even want to know who it is; she can’t look.

They pile into Bellamy’s car—Octavia behind the wheel, a very pale Bellamy half-unconscious in the passenger seat, and Raven and Clarke in the back.

“Act normal,” Octavia is saying. “Go to school. Go to practice and chess club and do whatever the fuck else humans do. Wait for our call.”

“What about Sydney?” Clarke asks. “Why is she doing this?”

“She’s trying to scare us,” Octavia replies. “Force us to bend the knee.” Clarke sees her glance sidelong at Bellamy, whose eyes are half-lidded.

“Let us help,” Raven says, leaning forward. “We can—”

“We’ll handle this,” Octavia barks. “Now _go._ ”

Clarke has to be physically pulled away from the bonds of pack, from the need to stay with Bellamy and his slow-healing wounds.

 

The first thing Raven does when they get to Clarke’s place is Google Diana Sydney.

“I just need to make the pieces fit,” she says, with that Look on her face.

It only takes twenty minutes for her to come up with a theory, during which time Clarke flips between channels to wait for the report on the new body.

“Okay,” says Raven purposefully—she’s pacing Clarke’s living room with the laptop in her hands and Clarke can’t get her to sit— “she had to have been an omega, since she wasn’t a Blake. They probably took her in; that means she was _living_ with them.”

“And she wanted power,” Clarke finishes numbly. Her TV is showing her the Blake house, the sheeted corpse.

Raven runs a hand through her loose hair, the laptop teetering on her other hand. “Yeah,” she says. “And she got it.”

They don’t end up going to school or to practice or doing whatever the fuck else humans do.

They turn right back around to the Blake property. They don’t think they’ll run into Octavia or Bellamy—chances are they’ll be at the sheriff’s or at their spare apartment until they can come back for blood. Honestly, Clarke doesn’t care. She’s tired of being kept out of the loop, of being called _werepup_ and told to go home. She’s going to do something, dammit.

She doesn’t remember how loud humans are until Raven follows her into the woods, heart and footfalls thumping loudly, lungs rasping, every twig and leaf finding its way under her shoes. She doesn’t tell Raven that, though. She just makes her stand still as Clarke does her best to pick up clues.

“Hey,” Raven whispers. “Do you…?” She touches her nose.

Clarke nods. The alpha’s scent is strong here—too strong for comfort. It makes her feel sick to know it’s because Sydney’s been hanging around the Blake property for a long time, trying to mark it, force the land to accept her.

“I have the scent,” she tells Raven. She tosses her the car keys. “You drive. Head east.”

Raven catches them easily, looks puzzled when Clarke rolls down the window. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to stick your head out the window.”

Clarke does exactly that. She follows the scent on the wind, shouts directions at Raven and ignores all the dog jokes.

“Clarke!” Raven calls, and her voice sounds warning. “Do you know where we’re going?”

Clarke pulls back into the car, her face stinging from the wind, and says, “Yeah.”

Raven steps on the brake. They stare at the house of Wells Jaha in silence.

 

Clarke leaves Raven at Wells’s place.

“Something terrible is going to happen,” he tells her in a flat voice, and he doesn’t really seem like Wells—he seems hollower.

“We’ll watch like, all the Harry Potter movies in one fucking go,” Raven says. _I’ll keep him safe,_ Clarke hears. The last text she got from Raven was a succinct _Everything good. Ash circle in place._ It’s the only thing making Clarke feel better.

She doesn’t remember no one’s supposed to be home until she’s stepping inside her front door. But there it is: a steady, stationary heartbeat thumping in the house, in her room. She’s afraid for a minute, hovers at the foot of the stairs. _Mom’s at the hospital,_ she thinks. _Mom’s safe._

But then she catches the scent.

Bellamy is sitting on her bed, propped up against the headboard. It’s an act of deliberate disrespect that irks her; it will smell like him now and he knows it. He doesn’t say anything. He just looks at her with his frowning mouth and accusing eyes, waiting.

“Shut up,” Clarke says, even though he hasn’t spoken. She throws her things on her desk.

“You’re making it very hard for me to protect you.” He sounds tired and looks it. He’s still pale, still unsteady. Clarke pushes away the worry she’s feeling.

“Why do you even care?” she asks.

“Because I can’t lose you, too,” he replies, like it’s obvious.

The silence that follows is thick with something. Clarke doesn’t know what to name it, but it’s alive and strong, connecting them like a steel cable.

“I don’t need protecting,” she says at length. “I need to be in the loop.”

“Fine,” he says shortly. “O’s with the police giving a statement. I’m chewing you out. When she’s done we’re going to hunt Sydney down and I’m going to cut her in half. The end.”

“You’re weak,” Clarke points out. “You can’t go up against an alpha like this.”

“I can,” says Bellamy. “And I will.”

“Yeah?” Clarke says angrily. “And what happens if you lose? We bend the knee?”

He’s up so fast she thinks he’ll rip himself open all over again. “No,” he growls. “I want you to _swear,_ Clarke. _Swear_ to me you won’t.”

The fierceness of his voice takes her aback. “I swear,” she says. “But what then? What are we supposed to do if you’re the one who gets cut in half?” The reality of that possibility is hitting her in full force, settling cold and uncomfortable in her gut. Pack isn’t pack without Bellamy.

“You take over,” he says simply. He steps closer. “You and O—you step right over my body and you _finish_ it.”

“What if I can’t?” Her voice comes out uneven.

He reaches out, touches her hair, the side of her face. “You can,” he says. “I trust you.” The corner of his mouth is angling upwards and Clarke thinks, _he shouldn’t be smiling this isn’t something to smile about._ “Princess.”

“Shut up,” Clarke says, and then she’s kissing him.

He kisses back like he’s starving, like he wants to consume her; she has to rise on her toes to reach his mouth, even though she’s got two fistfuls of his shirt dragging him down, and he sweeps her up, crushes her to him hard. Everything seems to move very fast. The floor’s leaving her feet, the bed’s meeting her back, the clothes between them are disappearing. Clarke’s fucked before, but that was when she was a human, when her senses were dull and blunt and gray and this— _Bellamy’s_ —like seeing with glasses for the first time, like breathing fresh air for the first time, like a million different things packed into one.

They lie there afterwards listening to each other’s slowing heartbeats. Clarke has a throbbing bite mark on her shoulder. There are quickly-healing scratches down Bellamy’s back. Nothing is lighter; the world is still turning outside and there are questions in the air that neither of them has the answers to. _What does this mean? What have we done to each other? What will we do?_

The moment passes.

Bellamy’s phone buzzes on the floor, rattling impossibly loud against the wood. _Time’s up,_ Clarke thinks. They both get up, searching for their clothes in the darkening room. The phone keeps buzzing, incessant in the silence.

“I’m not staying on the sidelines,” she says, if only to break it. “You can’t make me.”

He doesn’t answer, doesn’t even acknowledge what she said. The long wounds on his flank look less angry. She’s yanking on her jeans when he says, “Clarke.” He’s dressed, looking at her differently than he did before.

“What?”

“I really hope I live tonight,” he says. And then he’s scooping the phone off the ground, walking out of her room, maybe even out of her life.

Clarke mouths the words after him. _Me, too._

 

The alpha is a creature straight out of hell, all coal-black fur and twisted features and crimson eyes that hurt Clarke’s vision like laser pointers. Clarke can’t connect it to the picture of Diana Sydney, to anything remotely human. She can sense it now, up close—there’s something wrong, something missing. _Power twists you up inside,_ Octavia had said.

Clarke watches helplessly as the three werewolves—one alpha, two betas—circle each other like feral cats in a dark alley, backs arched, teeth bared, eyes glowing. Behind her Raven is very still _(“You think I’d miss the action?”_ she’d snarked at Clarke).

Clarke starts forward. Raven grabs her bare wrist and _whoa_. An electric jolt goes through Clarke; they jump apart. Clarke launches herself at the alpha’s back and swipes a handful of claws across the back of its neck. It snarls, plucks her off as easily as a feather and flings her down hard into the dirt.

Raven screams her name, and whatever it is connecting them jolts again. Clarke sees the alpha turn toward the sound, thinks, _NO._ But she’s pretty sure her ribs are broken and blood is dripping into her eyes and she can't get there in time.

Octavia darts in front of Raven, dares the alpha to attack. When it does, she fights back, earns herself a pained shriek and three claw marks down her cheek. But it’s enough; a shadow is perched on the alpha’s back, yanking back its head sharply.

Bellamy ends it with a flick of his wrist. When he’s finished bisecting Diana Sydney, his eyes turn as red as his hands.

 

Clarke and Raven stand pressed together, hands and arms intertwined. A dozen feet away are two lumps of dead flesh, and beside it the two Blakes, hugging in a rare display of affection. Octavia's face is pressed into Bellamy's shoulder, his nose in her hair. His eyelids are closed against the crimson behind them. Clarke is already feeling the gravitational shift, her wolf uneasily adjusting to the knowledge.  _New alpha._

"Is it over?" Raven asks. Clarke is realizing now that Raven, too, has magic running under her skin.

"Yes," she says, even though she's not sure. She squeezes Raven's hands. "It's over."

 

**epilogue.**

Clarke winces as she gets out of her car. Her ribs are mostly healed, but she’s still aching and sore, her body grumbly and complaining as though it can’t tell that it’s all worth it, that they’ve _won._

The Blake house looks as dilapidated as it did when she first saw it, but it’s less bleak somehow. The frame seems to sag less, the paint doesn’t appear to be that chipped, the scorch marks in the foundation look to be fading. The land under it, under her feet, thrums a different, even happy message now, one under pack and alpha. _Home, home, home._

Bellamy is waiting for her in the kitchen, eyeing the peeling walls.

“Alpha Blake,” she says, quirks an eyebrow so he’ll know she isn’t too serious.

A corner of his mouth angles upwards. “Hey, princess.”

A thrill goes through Clarke’s chest, and only half of it is at hearing her alpha’s approval.

He nods at the walls. “Saturday. We’re fixing this.”

“Okay,” Clarke says easily. She’s sort of given up on human life—it’s almost the end of senior year, after all, and she’s very much not human anymore. Her mother has known about werewolves since early med school. Raven isn’t going anywhere, resigned to fixing cars and the new books she’s obtained. _I think it’s called a spark_ , she’d said. Clarke doesn’t care; not as long as she’s alive. “Where’s Octavia?” she asks.

“Meeting the new pack at the city line,” Bellamy says. He cocks his head, hearing something Clarke can’t yet. “They’re a few minutes out.”

She follows him to the porch. He looks different in the light, when’s he’s not bleeding, not dying, not crumbling. He breathes in the air, eyes flickering red where they were once blue, and Clarke suspects he feels it, too. The seasons are changing. Winter is melting. Everything’s changing.

She can hear the sound of the car in the distance now, approaching fast. She looks sidelong at him, eyebrows raised.

“What now?” she asks.

Wordlessly, he reaches out and takes her hand.

**Author's Note:**

> I may have to continue this.


End file.
